Sunday, April 27, 2008

Isn't he beautiful? It's a butcher bird, sitting on my clothes line, going through his repertoire. You can hear me whistling every now and again trying to encourage him to sing some more. He was really going through every sound he knew, and was quite content to whistle for me.

Sadly though, I can't feed him or his friends. Butcher birds are called exactly that because they eat meat and will butcher other smaller birds for food. And as I, and one of my neighbours have pet birds, we have to discourage the butcher birds from our area, as they will actually eat a budgie, canary, lovebird or other small bird right through the bars of a cage. I have to keep my little guy (a very, very old lovebird called Harry) inside unless I sit with him, because if the butcher birds don't get him, the noisy miners (mickey birds) will.